The WLD Show

Bryan Pham is the cofounder of the Asian Hustle Network. Asian Hustle Network is a community of 150,000+ members dedicated to bringing the Asian community together by giving all the hustlers an opportunity to share their business, network with other professionals, and build powerful connections.

In this episode we discuss:

• The motivations and origins of Asian Hustle network.
• The trials, tribulations, and joys of building a community of 150,000+ members
• How to listen to your community and how the community's needs have shifted through Covid
• Turning a community into a VC backed company
• How AHN is utilizing funding to create a media distribution platform, a company accelerator, and conference to give back to its community.
• How much diversity there is in the Asian American community
• The benefits, detriments, and what it feels like to grow up poor
• The beliefs Bryan had to unlearn to succeed in America
• Why a positive mind set and consistency are the key to sustained growth
• How Bryan optimizes his weeks
• Finding guests, preparing for interviews, and post-production required to grow a podcast

Links for Bryan and Asian Hustle network

• https://asianhustlenetwork.com/
• Spring 2022 AHN Uplifted conference
• AHN marketplace
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvpham28/details/experience/

Will, Lee, and Andrew talk about past interviews, crypto, network effects, upcoming interviews and if we'll ever figure out a tagline describing the podcast.

In this episode we discuss:

• Will's north star: continuously learning, being generous.
• Web 3 and its parallels to history
• The history of networks and how all networks eventually monopolize
• What the tagline of the Will, Lee, and Andrew show should be.

Mindy Zhang executive coaching

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindyzh/
• https://www.mindyzhang.com/

Previous podcast guests mentioned:

• #3 Evan Lai: Moved to Korea for love. Came home for Kpop.
• #6 David Duong: Winning in your career when odds are stacked against you.
• #7 Karina Hsieh: Loving Yourself Into Being. Cultivating Self-Love and Compassion
• #16 Mindy Zhang: A High Achiever’s Guide to a Meaningful Life
• #23 Alice Kao: Courageous Leadership. How an Asian American Woman Built a World-Class Rock Climbing Gym

Future podcast guests mentioned:

• #26 Bryan Pham: Amplifying Asian Entrepreneurial Voices Building Asian Hustle Network
• #27  Dan Chan: The Incredible Story of the Billionaire's Magician

Warren Tseng is the COO at RPG Commerce, a multi-brand direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce company based in Singapore. Warren grew up in Los Angeles, and since he was young followed his father's laid out plans for him - studied Electrical Engineering at UCLA, and after picking up his Masters in Bioengineering at UCSD and an MBA from MIT Sloan, Warren went into banking in Hong Kong. He joined a hot young startup in Uber in 2014, and helped the company expand and scale rapidly all over Asia, eventually rising through the ranks to become GM of Singapore. After the sale of Uber to Grab, Warren was recruited by Travis Kalanick to oversee APAC expansion for CloudKitchens. Warning from the doctors that serious health issues were taking hold of his body after a decade of putting his career first, Warren finally decided to take a break to work on his physical and mental health. During this time of reflection and healing, Warren was able to reconcile a lot of interpersonal turmoil and angst, while also redefining his priorities and purpose. 

In this episode we discuss:

• Breaking from the instilled values, goals and expectations that Warren's father set for him at a young age
• Why Warren decided to transition from finance to tech and joined Uber as it was breaking into Asia
• How Warren learned to be resourceful and became a jack of all trades at Uber as he navigated local political pressure, being targeted by the taxi mafia, while doing five jobs at once
• The difference between an individual contributor and a manager and why Warren is better suited as the latter
• Experiencing Uber's growth at all costs mandate and the potential human capital debt risks
• Why Warren was able to thrive and rise through the ranks at Uber, becoming GM of Singapore at a critical time for the company
• How Uber ex-CEO Travis Kalanick convinced Warren to join Travis' new upstart CloudKitchens to oversee APAC expansion
• How health issues forced Warren to hit the reset button, work on his physical as well as mental well-being, reconcile familial relationships, and redefine his priorities
• The importance of finding the right life partner to build and grow together
• Warren's decision to join RPG Commerce as COO, how he thinks about building processes and teams

Bradley Wong grew up in Houston, started stock picking in high school, and started day trading during his last semester at UT Austin. As they say, the rest is history. In the years since, Bradley has taught most of his friends and many professionals to day trade. Today, he shares base financial definitions, his stories and realizations from trading, and how his mind set has continued to evolve.

In this episode we discuss:

• How Bradley started and sustained day trading.
• How human biases make it difficult to succeed long term and day trading
• How Bradley cultivates his mind set in different market conditions to succeed at day trading.
• How Bradley prepared and moved to Brazil to take over his uncle's construction supply company.
• Personal adjustments Bradley had to make, in order to innovate.
• The differences of living and doing  business in  Brazil vs. the US.
• How Bradley diversifies his investments to protect against inflation, and the general approach to diversified investing.

Alice Kao has overcome many challenges in her life. She lost her father when she was 3, grew up attending six schools in three countries, before finally growing up in the US as a parachute kid. Since then, she became an investment banker to make her mom proud, shifted into running sales & marketing in the toy industry. Alice is now the Founder and CEO of SenderOne, one the largest world-class rock climbing gyms both in Los Angeles and Orange County. Sender One is dedicated to helping people discover themselves and connect with others through climbing.

What an episode! In this one we hit on:

• How and why interest in indoor climbing has grown tremendously.
• What it was like being a CEO during covid. Making hard decisions and how Alice decided and shut down a 100+ person company.
• How to build coalitions in industries and what Alice learned from building a climbing gym coalition.
• How to create personal / company values and then share them in a way that company-wide, employees make aligned decisions.
• What Alice learned growing up as a "parachute kid" for 4 years.
• What does the label "trauma" really mean? What do you address during therapy? How do you choose what to address?
• How Alice's experience in the toy industry drives strategic decision making in creating rock climbing gyms.
• How asking questions without embarrassment can be a super power
• What Alice took away from trying Ayahuasca
• Improving yourself to be an even better role model for your kids.

Gil Cheung is Chinese American. But his parents were born in Mauritius. A small island off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. So his parents native tongue was French. They moved to Virginia where Gil was born. He grew up competing in US Math Olympiads and National Spelling bees. Gil graduated MIT with a Computer Science major but went to medical school instead. He received his medical degree and radiology residency at WashU - one of the top 3 radiology training programs in the country. Today Gil is a Partner Physician Radiologist at Kaiser Permanente.

When his daughter Sabrina was 4, she started having seizures and it kept him really busy as a father for many years. Thankfully, after years of searching and finding a solution, the seizures have stopped and given him more time to pursue his own interests.

Will, Lee, and Andrew get started with a conversation about Venture Capital. Then we get into our next interviews and the process behind getting them started.

Will, Lee, and Andrew talk about the processes we  need to start the podcast again. How can we make it easy and fun again? Also... Shang Chi,

Will, Lee, and Andrew talk about traveling and how that's added perspective since COVID. We also talk about Shang Chi and what we thought about it.

• The Ringer: The Reclamation of Shang-Chi
• Accented Cinema: How Tony Leung Acts With His Eyes | Video Essay
• GQ: Hong Kong Legend Tony Leung Tries His Hand at Hollywood
• They Call Us Bruce: They Call Us Dave Callaham

Will, Lee, and Andrew discuss what happened during the break and starting the podcast again. We have an honest conversation about where we are in our lives and in our careers.